Scientific news in small doses

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week

Mathieu Perreault
The Press

Opioids questioned

Opioids prescribed for home after surgery cause more harm than good, according to a new Montreal study. From a meta-analysis of 47 studies, physiologists at McGill University found that prescribing opioids externally was not associated with less pain, but rather with more side effects like nausea . The operations examined were minor, especially dental, and moderate, especially in orthopaedics. Opioid prescriptions to convalescents are also associated with risk of long-term addiction in the United States.

Quiz

What Have Israeli Researchers Discovered About Smell?

Answer: Smell influences who we choose as friends. According to psychologists at the Weizmann Institute, friendships that develop quickly are often between people who smell similar. In Science Advances in mid-June, these researchers describe how they tested this hypothesis with “electronic noses” sensitive to ten different smells. First with 20 pairs of (non-romantic) friends reporting that their bonds grew rapidly after a first encounter; then with 24 people who were asked to smell samples of human odors from their friends and strangers – their friends’ odors were rated as similar. The Israeli researchers argue that this result shows the importance of odors in social ties and the importance of common habits and places of life, often generating particular odors.

The number

80%

It is the proportion of northern elephant seal prey that is captured by their whiskers rather than their vision. These results obtained by Californian biologists come from the observation of five elephant seals, filmed for nearly ten hours. Videos have shown that only 20% of their prey are bioluminescent or present at a depth where there is still light. The whiskers of elephant seals detect water displacements associated with the movements of their prey, explain in PNAS in mid-June researchers from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

A Chinese moon map

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has just unveiled the most detailed topographic map of the Moon. It includes 12,341 craters, 81 basins, 17 rock types and 14 other groups of structures, such as volcanoes, valleys, ridges and depressions called rilles. The card was unveiled in mid-June in the Science Bulletin and is based on data from Chinese orbiters.

More vegetable protein rather than less animal protein

Quebecers who eat less meat also eat more sweets, according to a new study from Laval University. Presented by a nutrition student at the American Nutrition Society (ASN) annual conference, the study involved 1,147 adults. If they were classified according to their consumption of vegetable proteins, on the other hand, people who consumed more of them did indeed have a better diet. The presentation earned its author, Gabrielle Rochefort, an ASN prize.